Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 23:44, 1 May 2009

There seem to be confusion between several concepts:

• Prussian estates / Prussian Estates / Preußischer Estates
• Prussian parliament / Parliament of Prussia / Preußischer Parliament
• Preußischer Landtag / Prussian Landtag
• Preußischer Landesrat / Prussian Landesrat
• Prussian diet / Prussian Diet / Preußischer Diet
• Polish sejmiks in Royal Prussia

As far as I can tell from literature, Prussian estates were the first political representative body in Prussia created in 14th century, around 15th century they gave rise to Prussian Landesrat, after Second Trety of Thorn they continued within the Royal Prussia, in 1569 part of the Landesrat was incorporated into Sejm of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but part of which survived (alongside of the regional sejmiks) until the partitions of Poland. I am not sure if there was any similar body in the Duchy of Prussia, and what happens after Treaty of Oliwa in Duchy and partitions of Poland in Royal Prussia is very unclear - the representative body (bodies?) were weakened, but whether they disappeared or were transformed into something (Bundestag?) is not covered in my sources. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 22:46, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Off and on I have been working on a parliament of Prussia article (concerning the 19th century institution) which I will try to post in the new week or two.

From the glossary of Karin Friedrich's The Other Prussia: sejmik- Provincial diet or dietine of the local szlachta in the palatines and districts. After 1569, Poles called the Royal Prussian diet (Landesrat) the "Prussian sejmik, or sejmik generalny (general dietine)." Landrat, on the other hand, was a position of the Hohenzollern state. Feuchtwanger roughly translates Landrat as "county councillor" and compares it to a Justice of the Peace. McKay describes the Landrat as a provincial councillor who administered the largest districts.

I'm not sure off-hand how often there were meetings of the (East) Prussian estates after the age of absolutism. Provincial diets were reestablished in 1823, at least.

The German Misplaced Pages has a broad article at de:Preußischer Landtag (compare to the current disorganized Preußischer Landtag). Different assemblies include:

• Diet of Royal Prussia
• Diet of the Duchy of Prussia
• United Diet (Vereinigter Landtag) of Prussia of 1847
• Prussian National Assembly (Preußische Nationalversammlung) convened in 1848 (sometimes Prussian Constituent Assembly)
• Parliament of Prussia / Prussian Landtag (Preußischer Landtag), bicameral from 1849-1918, then unicameral until 1933
• Prussian State Assembly (Preußische Landesversammlung) from 1919-1921 (sometimes Prussian Constituent Assembly or Prussian Constitutional Convention)

Olessi (talk) 00:25, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Topic of the article

The topic is not entirely clear to me. It starts with the Teutonic Order state, then the article tries to encompass both Royal/West Prussia and Ducal/East Prussia without explaining the important differences. The end of story is unclear as well, how did the "Prussian Estates" turn (over time) into the provincial administrations of the Kingdom of Prussia. The following sentence sounds a bit naive to me: "The Order created the Estate to appease the local citizens, but over time the relations between the Order and the Estates grew strained, as the Order of knights treated local population with contempt." Estates used to exist all over Europe. There were of course political reasons for conflict. This should be explained in the article. As for the "contempt" factor, the remaining non-German natives were ruled or suppressed on the level of manorialism. The estates represented mainly the emerging new native German urban elites who tried to end the colonial ways of government (simplification). The Polish crown offered to them indeed more rights etc. - but in what was to be later called East Prussia the situation turned differently. I think it would be much easier to explain the political structures in the respective articles about the historic territories. And there is a factual mistake: The Duchy of Prussia did not come under the influence of the Electorate of Brandenburg with the Treaty of Oliva (1660), but since 1618 (personal union with Brandenburg) - notwithstandig the legal and status issues that continued to exist into mid-18th century. Finally, we do not learn much about what the composition of the "Prussian Estates" was, their privileges and their relations with the Order, Polish Crown, Duke of Prussia, Brandenburg rulers. --DaQuirin (talk) 18:12, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

To topic of the article are the Prussian estates. I agree there is room for much expansion and clarifications, please do so if you can.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:30, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

This is really confusing. Prussian Diet redirects here. Prussian diet redirects to Preußischer Landtag. As does prussian diet. The Preußischer Landtag article looks like one of Matthead's POV forks. That article should be merged into that one.radek (talk) 20:24, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Merge

The article Preußischer Landtag should be merged into this article.radek (talk) 20:28, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Certainly not. -- Matthead  Discuß   23:44, 1 May 2009 (UTC)